Townstal

Townstal (anciently Tunstall, Townstall, etc.) is an historic manor and parish on elevated ground now forming part of the western suburbs of the town of Dartmouth in Devon.

St Clement's Church, the parish church of Townstal, was formerly the mother church of Dartmouth. Within the parish was situated the estate of Mount Boone (now the site of Britannia Royal Naval College), in 1810 the residence of John Henry Seale (1780–1844), later 1st Baronet, Member of Parliament for Dartmouth in 1838, lord of the manors of Stoke Fleming and Cornworthy, where the Seale family had resided for many generations. Also within the parish was the estate of Mount Galpin, in 1810 the seat of Arthur Holdsworth (1780–1860), MP, Governor of Dartmouth Castle.

Townstal Church was granted to Torre Abbey in about 1198, shortly after the founding of that Abbey by the Premonstratensian order. In 1329 the vicar of Townstal allegedly drowned himself and the Bishop of Exeter punished this crime by issuing an interdict that forbade any religious services from taking place at the church for two years. The Bishop gave licence to William Bacon, one of the wealthiest burgesses of the town of Dartmouth, to hold private services at a chapel in his house, but nothing was done for the general public of the town. In 1330 King Edward III visited Dartmouth and was petitioned by the town's burgesses to allow them to build a church down by the waterside because of what they said was the "very great fatigue of their bodies" in climbing the hill to Townstal. Their petition was granted by a charter dated 16 February 1330 which allowed William Bacon to assign to Torre Abbey an acre of land in Clifton, near the river, to "build anew the parish church". However both the canons of Torre Abbey and the Bishop of Exeter opposed the building of a new church so nothing was done. In 1331 permission was granted "for aged and infirm parishioners" to celebrate mass at the chapel of St. Clare in a lower part of the town, but everyone else was clearly still expected to climb the hill to Townstal.

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